Update On How I Award XP In My OSR Campaign

  How I award XP in my OSR games has been a changing process over the existence of the campaign. I'll explain when appropriate why I think each thing has a balance to it (or not) as a reward and add some of my reasoning.
  To simplify this post, I will assume we're rewarding the XP in a dungeon, but it could be another type of adventure.

Monsters: Assume that when I refer to 'monsters' I also include other forms of enemies. I award XP for monsters as in the default manner of 'Crypts & Things'. I like that it has a handy chart for how a monster's special abilities would specifically increase its worth. 'Castles & Crusades', the system I use (although house-ruled) has something similar but it also requires me to keep track of the HP of a monster to calculate its XP worth. While I initially appreciated that, it ends up giving me more book-keeping to do and an average XP evens out over the course of a campaign, since sometimes the monsters will get less than average and sometimes they'll get more. (Plus I often roll a monster's HP during the game on the spot.) I don't award XP for avoiding conflict with a monster, when doing so the players are already rewarded by avoiding the risk of death. (Even lesser monsters can weaken you by a few HP, which might make all the difference later on against a more powerful creature or trap.) Monsters don't give that much XP and they are dangerous, but once they are killed their XP worth is ensured to you if you survive the dungeon.

Traps: They are a challenge and they can hurt or even kill you, so yes I think they should give XP when disarmed or survived. I use the rules given in 'Machinations of the Space Princess' for those. The philosophy behind their XP worth is basically the same as with monsters. Unlike with the monsters though, if you knowingly avoid a trap (and don't just avoid it by accident without even knowing it's there.) then you DO get its XP worth.

Treasure: 1 xp per 1 gp. Back to being the main source of XP in my campaign, it's not dangerous in itself as a way to win XP but you need to prepare accordingly and you have to bring it back to civilization, so in many ways it's the easiest XP to lose on the way, therefore I think it balances out.

Magic Items: When I include them, I do award XP for them. A lot of people argue that they are a reward already, but oddly enough many of those who say it still give XP for gold pieces, which are also a reward in itself. Anyway, I use the XP worth from 'Castles & Crusades' but do it a bit differently when it's time to award said XP; I actually split it among the party, I don't give it all to the person keeping the magic object. The magic item needs to be Identified (or otherwise somehow triggered, or even drank in the case of potions) to receive its XP worth. If the characters don't realize what it is, they don't get any XP even if they still have it with them. (But they might later on.) If they sell it, then they'll sell it according to its price if it wasn't magic but without an XP worth. If it takes some time to Identify it and the people doing so are not the exact same as the characters who initially looted it, I reward XP to those who were there to initially loot it only, and with the same split as if the other original looters were also there to receive it. I think XP for magic items are balanced in that there's always the risk that a magic item will not be recognized as such and be entirely overlooked. I'm not particularly afraid of giving something too powerful for the party because it still has to fit within my XP Budget. If a single magic item takes most of my XP budget, or so much that there's little left for monsters, traps and regular treasure, then I know it's too powerful.

Story/Goals: I used to give XP for those things, but don't anymore. In the end, D&D is about fighting monsters and looting treasure. Those ARE the story and goals. Sure, it might be nice to do a session at the royal court making contacts or solving mysteries, but those are very low-risk and are rewarded by a growing character knowledge of the setting and the possible gain of new contacts and allies, or at least knowing who's the enemy. Or maybe they aren't low-risk if assassins and other dangers do show up during those moments, but then that's what the XP rewards from my list are for! (Avoiding a poisoned drink because you smelled it in time would be discovering and avoiding a Trap in game terms, for example.)

  Let's use the Death Star as an example.

  Surely blowing up the Death Star was a huge moment in the story of the characters and their entire setting! It SHOULD be worth lots of XP, right??? Well, I would say that in itself, blowing up the Death Star was maybe worth the same as a very, very low-level trap, and only because it did require a skill roll from Luke to shoot and not miss at a crucial moment.

  Blasphemy? Not so. I would say that the Death Star RUN, the assault itself, was worth LOTS of XP! Along the way, there were plenty of Traps (all those cannons shooting at them) and Monsters (The enemy Tie Fighters, one of them being particularly dangerous, the one piloted by Darth Vader!) The dangerous environment that was the trench is also a trap in itself, it could even be argued that it was worth XP for every round inside it! One wrong skill roll while dodging an attack while in there and you hit the side of the trench or a nearby ally! So in the end, attacking the Death Star and blowing it up was worth lots of XP, but it was all of its elements that made it worth so much, not the single act of blowing it up. Succeeding in the mission and surviving it doesn't mean you get extra XP for the goal, it means you get to receive your XP for all that happened while in that 'dungeon'.

As a side-note, I use the treasure listings of monsters from the books mostly as a guideline. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I ignore them. In any case, in the end it has to fit with my XP budget.

Next, an update on how I handle XP Budget when preparing a game!

If You Can Stake, You Can Headshot!

  While I'm posting this with 'Vampire the Masquerade' in mind, it applies to any rules system that uses vampire staking rules.
  First of all, I want to clarify that I don't mean staking a vampire while he's sleeping or otherwise vulnerable.

  No, I mean staking a vampire mid-fight, or when the vampire is otherwise ready for conflict. 

  To me, having rules that can stake and paralyze a vampire mid-fight is the same as having rules for, say, a headshot during a gunfight, or simply stabbing a normal dude in the heart with a knife. What I mean is that very often, games that include vampires will also include rules for staking them. Sometimes the rules require that the wound inflicted by the stake is the final wound required for the character to be defeated anyway, and it basically just means it has to be by stake specifically. Other times, like in V:tM, you can do it as a single attack, and if you succeed you won the fight. It's difficult in V:tM, I'm not saying the opposite. The attack has to be at a difficulty of 9 and you need to cause three health levels of damage for the vampire to be staked and paralyzed.
  I think it's fine to have such rules. The problem is when all the other beings in the game, including plain humans, don't have to deal with the same rules. It actually makes the vampire characters more vulnerable in an odd way. You CAN skip the normal combat conditions and just stake a vampire through the heart, but you can't  just shoot a normal guy in the head? Again, not really a flaw in the game, just a problem if the Storyteller/GM doesn't acknowledge this.

  You want to knock a guy unconscious in one attack? Difficulty 9, three levels of health. You want to shoot him in the head? Same. Because at the end of the day, undead vampires shouldn't be the ONLY guys you can take out in one shot.

Vampire the Masquerade idea: The Real Play

[On filming an actor without his giving permission to be filmed]

Robert K. Bowfinger: Did you know Tom Cruise had no idea he was in that vampire movie till two years later?        Bowfinger (1999)

  A Real Play is when a vampire directs other Kindred to create a semi-improvised story in real time, similar to a story you would see in cinema or at the theater, with one or many mortals as unwitting participants. The public will be composed of vampires hidden via Obfuscate, either by their own power or by vampires with the Discipline high enough to mask the spectators.

  The Real Play genres can be varied and can last from a single night session to weeks or even months of story. It is often frowned upon by the Camarilla as being risky, which draws many rebellious neonates to it, but even they will make sure their Real Plays do not endanger the Masquerade. They are nevertheless very cruel plays. A romantic-themed Real Play might involve a handsome Toreador courting a mortal woman for months, helping her in her life through countless difficulties (many which will have been arranged by the Director) and finally ending like many romantic stories would end, with popular choices being a promise of moving in together or matrimony. That is normally considered the end of the story, and then the Director, Actors and Obfuscators move on to their next project for the enjoyment and entertainment of the Kindred Spectators. The fact that the mortal woman's life actually continues with her wondering what happened to her beloved fiance just isn't a concern for most of the cruel vampires who participate in this 'art form'.
  It could have been worse for this theoretical mortal though. As you're about to read, the Sabbat handles it a bit differently.

  Sabbat vampires, as is to be expected, are much more extreme in their Real Plays. Vamprie Disciplines can, for example, re-create very easily a Haunted House scenario. The Obteneration Discipline of the Lasombra can prove particularly interesting for those. A vampire with good Fortitude and Potence can play the role of a Slasher to perfection. Technically, as long as they don't reveal themselves to be vampires and don't expose any actual Kindred weaknesses, they're not breaking the Masquerade, so while Camarilla elders would fall down hard on the participants of such a Real Play, the Sabbat elders will probably overlook it.

  In any case, while a Camarilla Real Play might end with the vampires leaving the mortals to their lives (Sometimes leaving the door open for a 'sequel' with the same 'protagonists'), Sabbat ones will often celebrate the end of a Real Play by feeding on the protagonists, so even in the event of a risky Play outright breaking the Masquerade, it changes little in the end.

  If the mortals behave in such a way that it leads to an unsatisfying or anti-thematic ending, the Director and/or Actors can lose face, either for having chosen the wrong mortals to involve or for not having done their job properly. Everyone's a critic, a no one likes to critic more than a Kindred at the Elysium.

 

Vampire The Masquerade - Generation House Rule

  The news of a fourth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade coming in 2016 has me pretty excited. So excited that I grabbed my 20th anniversary edition and started re-reading it, and it really put me in the mood for playing it again. (Especially now that we're in October!)

  That said, one thing that cannot be denied is that the rules for a vampire's Generation at character creation are broken. There's no reason not to max out that background, as it makes you so much more powerful. I remember reading one of the books in the early 2000's that discussed this, and the argument that the book had was that someone who put all his points in Generation would have no allies, no contacts, etc. That they would be sorely missing in other backgrounds. And I remember thinking how false that rang with the existence of bonus points.

  Vampire: The Requiem has fixed the problem since then by using Blood Potency instead of Generation. But we're talking about Vampire: The Masquerade here, where Generation is a strong story element. Changing Generation basically changes the very lore of the setting.

  Making Generation cost more points could be the simplest solution, but that's boring, let's make the solution more interesting here. (And all the while keeping an 8th Generation vampire just as accessible as it would normally be during character creation!) A player who chooses that background has to take a supernatural Flaw for every dot he puts in it, without getting any bonus points from those Flaws. You want to put three dots in Generation? O.k, but your vampire won't be able to cross running water, will be vulnerable to silver and will cast no reflection in a mirror. (Just a quick example, the book has plenty of other flaws which make this house rule very viable, it wouldn't run the risk becoming repetitive anytime soon.) Or to make things more interesting, the Storyteller could choose them, or they could be picked at random. (While of course dismissing choices that would break a character concept.)

  I wouldn't apply that rule to Generation lowered from Diablerie since that comes with its own drawbacks, the first of which is that you actually have to manage to do it to another vampire.

  Expect more Vampire posts during the month of October and as always feel free to leave some feedback!

Zombie LARPing Taken to Insane Levels in Spain

  So we've all heard of zombie LARPs, but we can agree that this one from Spain takes it to a whole new level of insanity, as they do it in actual streets at night... It's all in Spanish but you can still get the gist of it by watching what happens.
  They filmed the whole thing, then edited it and put some cinematic bits at the beginning and along the video to make it into a story that can be watched, which is also pretty cool.

What the Coins Were For

  One of your players has stolen the coin purse of a random NPC. What were the coins for?

Roll a d4

1. The coins were to pay a doctor to save a sick family member. The NPC doesn't have enough to pay the doctor a second time and the doctor is Lawful Neutral, so he won't help without being paid.

2. Why, hookers and ale, of course! This NPC spends almost all of his weekly pay in the local brothel... To the point that when the brothel owners hear he was stolen and thus could not spend it all at their establishment this week, they send thugs to go looking for the thieves!

3. The NPC was going to rip off someone with his FAKE COINS...

4. The coins were for a local charity and the NPC is well-known for giving them a lot of money... Except the NPC has a deal with the charity manager and is actually recovering the money afterwards, it is all to avoid the King's taxes!


In conclusion: Remember that the players might never learn about any of it unless it makes sense in the context of the story. Or they might just learn parts of it and react according only to the information they have, which is like a funny secret joke for the GM.

Help Jim Ward

 From the Go Fund Me page: As many of you know, Jim Ward has been in the hospital for several weeks.  He has had some problems with his insurance and his bills are rising.  It sure would be great if we all pulled together and helped him out as much as we can. 

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