How Players Level Up

A suggestion (and, without any doubt, the most important one I've made, by far):

As we get closer to launch, it might be worth considering adopting a reward-based XP granting system, similar to the one I use for my SW game. It would be slightly more complex due to the 'level' nature of D&D, but would still easily work, adjusting the XP system toward PbP, as a means of encouraging participation in PbP.

This XP reward system is designed to help keep players motivated to play via rewarding them for doing so, while ensuring that you, the DM, maintain control over the pacing of character level advancement in the game. It's intended to give the players a little extra drive to participate regularly, rather than adopt the selfish PbP approach of "eh, it can wait." In this system, you don't award XP for killing monsters, making ability checks, etc. You streamline it to work efficiently within a PbP environment.


The way the system works:

(1) XP is accrued daily for participating players, on 'active' game days (Monday-Thursday). I consider player participation in PbP as 'good roleplaying.' As such, I frame it as such when explaining the nuances of this XP system to the players, further informing them that 'how fast your character levels up will be entirely up to you.'

(2) Bonus XP, equal to an additional Active game day's worth, is accrued for players who post all 4 Active game days that week, giving them 5 days worth of XP (this part of the XP system creates an immediately available short term goal for the players, and short term goals are more likely to be accomplished, and sought after, based on simple human nature).

(3) Every Monday, you post each character's accrued XP for the past week in a 'XP Tracker' type thread, in one post that lists all of them in alphabetical order (this serves as a reminder of sorts that their characters will level up based on their participation, and undoubtedly encourages some unspoken friendly competition-- the point is to motivate the players in every possible way).

(4) At the start of each game month, you tally each player's accrued XP for the month. For players who participated in full for the actual month, not missing a single Active game day (Monday-Thursday), you grant them an additional amount of XP, equal to 5 Active game days worth of XP.

(5) After tallying the monthly XP totals for each character, you then make any adjustments you see fit. Most often, this will be a deduction** of some sort, and you can basically attribute it to the groups progress over the past month (e.g., in my SW game, I have set it up so that the players can accrue 25 XP a month (math is smaller in SW!), but I typically adjust that amount by making a -5 deduction, or -10 if things seemed slow progress-wise). As a GM in my SW game, I do consider the players' progress over the month, but I also plan on a 5 to 10 point deduction, simply as part of controlling advancement, while allowing players to shoot for high XP.
** After some writing down below in the 'math' section, I've rethought this. Given the larger scale of D&D's math allowing more flexibility, I think it would work even better for you to simply add additional XP awards on a monthly basis, as a means of reinforcing the reward system. The added benefit is a little more control over character advancement, and even easier math.

(6) Occasionally, when you see fit, award additional XP to the party for achieving major milestones (e.g., slaying the villain, unearthing the lost treasure of 'X', etc, used to give the party boosts of XP for accomplishing major objectives, which will help motivate the party via further reinforcement, and give a natural RPG feel of getting that occasional 'mission accomplished' reward). As a math reference, in my SW game I'm planning on giving the players around a month's worth of XP (25, maybe 30) when they finish Operation: Dark Thrall. I give out enough XP on a regular basis, as a means of keeping the motivated and feeling like their character is getting somewhere, that I don't feel like I'm shorting them at all. In the end, keeping players interested in a PbP game requires a slightly different approach.

Notes:
---Early in the campaign, I'm making a point to give out a little more XP, in an effort to ensure that the players feel like their characters are advancing, growing, becoming more powerful, etc. This is part of a coordinated, multi-faceted approach to maintain interest in the game while the early plot develops. Later down the road, I can scale things back as I like, increasing reductions, while increasing major milestone rewards, etc. The rest of the system will stay exactly as is, to keep motivation high.
---A bonus feature of this system is that the character's XP will be an exact mathematical representative of their participation in the game. Over time, you'll be able to see how interested players with lower XP levels are. This, combined with your observations of player participation, will serve the function of allowing you to even PM players with really low XP, and even talk to them about leaving the game, from the approach of "no harm, no foul" and "if you're really not that interested, don't feel obligated to stay." If the player decides to leave (or you boot them after warnings), you can always bring in a new player, getting closer to your ideal vision of what the group should be, when it comes to participation.


Again, this reward system is designed to have character advancement occur at the pace YOU want it to. All that would be required is to decide roughly how soon you want the characters to get to the next level. An example will be the easiest way to explain.

Let's say the narrative meat of the game starts on Monday, March 13th. Based on that, you decide that you're comfortable with characters reaching 4th Level 3.5 months later, on the first Monday in July (the start of the game month, which comes with a monthly XP award).

Looking at the Character Advancement Table (PHB, p.15), we can see that it takes 1800 more XP to get from 3rd Level to 4th Level. Given that the plan is to have the characters level up in 16 total weeks, starting on Monday, March 13th, with anticipated leveling up on Monday, July 3rd, we do some math below.

I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU IGNORE ALL OF THE MATH BELOW AND SKIP TO MY NEXT POST, WHICH INTEGRATES THE ABOVE WITH FAR SIMPLER METHODS OF DETERMINING XP AWARDS, WHICH WILL WORK MUCH BETTER FOR D&D THAN IT EVER COULD IN SW.

Bear with me, I have no idea how capable you are at math, but this isn't as complicated as it might seem, depending on the reader, and you don't strike me as slow. Also, once you establish a baseline XP system, there will be no need for math like this in the future, as all other adjustments will be as simple as one simple step.

From here, we take 1800 XP, and divide it by 16 weeks. This gives us answer of 112.5 XP needed a week, which we reduce to a nice number, easily divisible by 5, for the five active game days worth of XP per week (Monday-Thursday + weekly bonus worth one day of additional XP).

We want to leave room for you to award an XP bonus in the future, so we drop that number 112.5 down to 75 XP/week. Given that there are five Active game days worth of XP per week (4 Actual, with 1 bonus for full participation), we divide by 5, and get 15, which means that a player can get 15 XP per Active game day they post (maximum 15 XP per day, not per post, to motivate that mandated daily participation).

Given 15 XP per Active game day, that allows the player to accrue 60 XP Monday-Thursday, with 15 Bonus XP for full weekly participation, totaling a potential 75 XP per week. Looking at our 16 week plan, we multiply the 75 XP/week by 16 weeks, and get 1200. Now, all you have to do on Monday, July 3rd, is award a 600 XP bonus, or, if you like, award a 150 XP (600 divided by the next 4 months) bonus at the start Aprli, May, June, and July. The math doesn't have to be ultra-concrete, either. Whatever happens, you can look at the characters XP at the start of July and just hand out enough to get at least some of the players to the next level.

Here comes the best part: Since you've established a baseline, derived from the 1800 XP over 16 weeks model, you can now make a very simple adjustment, after some of the players reach level 4. Looking at the Character Advancement Table again on p.15 PHB, we see that it takes (6500-2700) = 3800 more XP for the players to get from 4th to 5th Level. Rather than repeat the above steps, we simply take note that the 3800 XP needed to get from 4th to 5th is over double the 1800 XP needed to get from 3rd to 4th. From there you could simply start feeling out how to change the XP system. Maybe you want it to take longer to get to Level 6 (perhaps 6 moths this time?) so you marginally increase the weekly reward to 20 XP per Active day, with the intent of feeling out monthly and milestone XP awards to help guide character advancement. A few ways you can go from here.

Of course, after I wrote all that, a much simpler version of the original system came to me. Far more flexible, much easier to use. Still encourages participation.

Uses and integrates everything about the original post's system, but uses far simpler math.

In this far simpler method, you do a more estimated type of math, breaking numbers into arbitrary chunks and time frames that suit you. The degree of math you apply is entirely up to you.

(1) Determine how much XP is needed for character's next level (based on the highest level character, which will even help lower level characters, if any catch up a little). Then, determine a time frame for the character's advancement that suits you. [i]You can even just skip this step, and go straight to #2.[/i]

(2) Every Monday, decide on a group XP award that is divisible by 5 (important!), and one that you feel advances the group at a decent pace toward leveling up, based on your assessment in step #1, or on your assessment of the group's progress, and the past week's accomplishments. Rather than concrete mathematics here, you're feeling things out more, with a greater deal of flexibility, and more control.
---Note: This works for D&D because of the numbers system with XP in the tens, and hundreds, of thousands. It won't work for SW as that XP system functions on a lower scale, operating in the ones, fives, tens of XP, etc. Case in point, a supremely powerful character like Darth Vader would have about 1500 total XP. For our D&D game, that's not even 4th Level.

(3) On Monday, award characters XP based on their participation. Take the group award, then divide it by 5. Each of those is a share that can be applied for the character's weekly XP award.
---Note: Participating means that the player posted in the narrative of the game, whether it was combat, talking to the bartender, scouting the passage ahead, etc.
--OOC posts don't count for this.
--Don't allow posting twice on Tuesday to cover missing Monday. You want everyone playing cohesively together, rather than waiting on one another. Give an inch... next thing you know, someone is posting three times on Wednesday to cover Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Be fair, yet firm.
---5 shares to those who participated in full the past week (Mon-Thurs + the fifth share is that extra days worth of XP as a weekly bonus).
---3 shares to those who participated three days.
---2 shares to those who participated two days. (and a friendly PM nudge about participating)
---1 share to those who participated one day. (and a slightly less friendly PM nudge about participating)
---0 shares to those who didn't participate. (A fact finding mission via PM, unless they announced their absence in advance)

Example:
(1) Noting that the characters need 1800 XP to get from Level 3 to 4, you decide that you want to pace that for about 4-5 months. It's estimated, with flexibility for you increase/decrease weekly awards as you see fit, although being somewhat constant is best. Going for 18 weeks, but wanting to leave room for DM awarded major milestone bonuses, you decide to aim for 75 XP per week (75 x 18=1350), although it doesn't need to be a hard and fast rule.

(2)In the first week, you award 75 XP, as planned, 15 per share.
--Bob participated in full, Monday-Thursday. 5 shares = 75 XP.
--Joe participated three days, having been on vacation for Monday. 3 shares = 45 XP.
--Dan participated two days, also having been on vacation (perhaps it was the end of a holiday weekend). 2 shares = 30 XP.
--Tim didn't participate at all. 0 shares = 0 XP, and a PM from the DM, to figure out what the hell is going on that Tim can't be bothered to even post in the Absence thread, or PM, or something.

A Note on Participation and Patterns:

Did they announce they would be gone ahead of time (vacation, or a flood warning/evacuation, like one of my players went through weeks ago, etc). If so, as long as they are almost always present, no biggie. However, if they are no shows, and just gone, it's worth PMing them. If it's the first week of gaming and they are already no-showing, kick them, unless they have a really good reason (and it needs to be really good in a world of easy access tech and internet).

Watch for patterns. If someone is gone half the time, drop them, after one or two warnings. Even if someone regularly announces vacations and such, but is, because of this, regularly gone, that's a situation where I PM them and say "it's just not going to work, sorry, but we're just looking for more active members, etc."

Final Thoughts:

As the DM, you can't be soft on participation in PbP. You don't have to be an overbearing ass either, but make expectations clear, and then follow up with your rules and policies.

Ultimately, this system is designed to make certain that over half the characters XP is accrued via participation, as a means of motivating players to show up to the game, which ensures that the rest of the group is not waiting on someone to take their turn. E.g., the guy in the D&D game I'm in who plays the Ranger, and, although he signed up for once per day posting at the outset of the game, shows up less than half the time. Or, the SW game I'm a player in, wherein, despite signing up for a once per day posting game, the rest of the group posts about 1-2 times per week, on average. No exaggeration.

The motivational XP award system helps curb this PbP killing behavior, and, along with concrete participation policy, makes expectations clear, in addition to freeing everyone up to take some time off on the weekends, or game, if the situation allows it.

Lastly, feel free to copy and make adjustments to any of the rules policies on attendance and participation in Vanguard of Darkness. If you generally like them, I believe editing and re-purposing them for Dark Fantasy will save you some valuable time, and I believe that they are already tactfully worded, with clarity on why the XP system works the way it does.

I'm generally with this. I had something similar roughly in mind, but I will definitely incorporate what you say about an actual gradual build of XP just based on participation. Like a weekly allowance sort of for everyone who is doing the basic chores. And I definitely think of XP mostly moving as you accomplish story award, landmark events, milestones, whatever you want to call them. I don't ever want to find myself working on a spreadsheet tallying up exact amounts by monster kill or by goon kill or whatever each XP value, dividing it up by the number of people who helped in the kill. Ugh. Who has time for that shit?!

So people will move up some gradually as they participate and then some by the progress of the story and overall realistic markers in experience that is convincing that they have new capabilities because of building on what they have learned and experienced.

Also, every game I run has some gaps in the timeline here and there, some breaks where some stuff is happening "off camera" between game sesh episodes. People are getting older, albeit not too quickly on that, learning new things in the experience of life, training and practicing, getting into a few more bar fights that aren't actually played out. So people will see some advancement over time, hopefully at a cool pace that is fun but not unrealistic.

Works for me, as long as there's not too much off camera!

Also, the important thing with the participation reward system is that over time it can be seen to have value, even if that just means that there's 1 or 2 characters that are half a level to 1 level ahead of the group. I think as long as there are only 1-2 levels XP difference between the highest and lowest in a group, things should be fine.